Some Goodnight Kisses
by shallowness
Summary: There's one piece of advice about marriage that Ron Weasley has tried to follow. (Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger, Bill Weasley/Fleur Delacourt)


Title: Some Goodnight Kisses  
Author: shallowness  
Fandom: Harry Potter  
Rating: Teen  
Characters/Pairing: Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger, Bill Weasley/Fleur Delacourt  
Summary: There's one piece of advice about marriage that Ron Weasley has tried to follow.  
Disclaimer: Not mine; don't profit.  
Author's Note: 2,634 words. Inspired by the prompt 'Any, any/any, always kiss me goodnight'. With thanks to king_touchy for beta reading this, but all errors are mine.

 **Some Goodnight Kisses: shallowness**

"How—" Ron stopped before he'd barely even begun asking his question. He'd Owled Bill to come out to the pub with one purpose, really. There was less than a month to go before the wedding and then, that would be it, he'd be married to Hermione.

On the whole, he was looking forward to it. Just a bit terrified. Terrified he'd muck it up somehow and be unworthy of the vows he was going to make.

So, he'd reckoned he needed advice. He could have asked his dad for it. Arthur and Molly Weasley's marriage was legendary. There were school friends and colleagues who had always envied the Weasleys this, Ron had grown to realise over the years.

But there are some things you simply can't ask your dad. So, Ron had decided that it would be easier to turn to Bill, whose marriage came under the heading of 'happy', and that with was Bill having been bitten by a werewolf and his wife being part-Veela. Not to mention French.

Now, here, on the night, 'easier' turned out to be a relative concept. Ron was convinced he'd been wrong, he hadn't drunk enough and should have chosen firewhiskey.

"Spit it out," Bill said over his butterbeer. He was in a good mood. It was a nice change to get out of the house - although he loved his kids to bits, they were still at demanding ages. And the best part of a night out like this was coming back home to Fleur, who would demand he made it up to her for leaving her alone with his enfants terribles.

Bill didn't think Ron was having cold feet or anything, but his youngest brother didn't just send him an Owl saying, 'Fancy a pint or two at the Ruddy Healer tonight?' for no reason. Charlie might do when he was in the country, but there were many more years between Bill and Ron. Bill distinctly remembered holding Ron as a newborn and marvelling at how titchy he was. He'd had the same thought when holding his own babies, only they'd been even smaller because his arms had been bigger.

Harry was Ron's best man, and who Ron would naturally bounce ideas off. The stag-do hadn't irreparably damaged their friendship or got anyone in trouble with the law, but there was obviously something bothering Ron tonight that he couldn't raise with Harry. Ron's answers to questions about wedding preparations and even the Cannons' season had been half-arsed. Bill had drunk enough butterbeer to feel it was time to get down to brass tacks.

"Er, right. Yeah." Ron was squirming, but Bill waited. "Look, you and Fleur, you're still good, aren't you?"

Bill's eyes narrowed as he guessed where this was heading.

"I'd say so. We've had some ups and downs, but I don't think she regrets taking me on, and I hope I haven't given her cause to," he said carefully.

Ron nodded, face slightly flushed by something other than the warmth of the pub or the alcohol in his body. It was one of the Weasleys' burdens, along with freckles and the like.

"But how—how do you do that? How do you make it work?"

Bill sighed a little. It was a big topic and he didn't have a lecture on tap, not when he sometimes wished for his own handbook for married life. Some days, he would have told Ron to ask anyone but him, but he'd been a big brother long before Fleur Delacourt had come into his life and staked her claim on it. When a little brother asked you a question like this, you did your best to answer. Bill started to talk, hoping he was giving good advice, not spouting bilge.

Bill's last piece of advice was for the end of the day—not sex advice, as he figured Ron had got enough of that from other sources. But it was something that had worked for him and Fleur and other Weasley couples.

At first, following Bill's advice was a breeze. Ron and Hermione's honeymoon period lasted long after the honeymoon officially ended. Not that they didn't bicker—one reason Ron had married Hermione was that they would bicker for the rest of their lives. But, quite often, one of them would break off, grinning at the other. The novelty of being married, that little something extra that came from having made their vows to love each other and stay true, whatever life threw at them, had changed things. Plus, they were both more relaxed and good-natured now that they weren't arranging a massive wedding involving Muggles, wizards and liberated house elves, not to mention keeping track of Hermione's detailed to-do lists.

So, Ron developed the habit of ending his night by pressing his lips to his wife's skin, wherever was most convenient, and mumbling 'G'night 'Mione.'

But they had a fight one evening, and it was a humdinger that lasted through supper and onwards. Everything they said stung a little more because it was the first time that they'd argued since getting married. Hurting, because they'd both believed the fallacy that things would be different, better, between them now that they were married, neither backed down or apologised.

Eventually, they ran out of words down and there was nothing else to do but go to bed, so they stomped around, carrying out their nightly routines. Ron certainly wasn't going to take the sofa.

There were none of the usual shared glances or caresses promising their night clothes wouldn't stay on long. Instead there was glowering, and candles were blown out by huffs. Two stubbornly angry people went to their respective sides of the bed, got in and lay down. For the first time since the wedding, they were far apart.

Ron was about to close his eyes when he remembered Bill's advice. He was in no mood to follow it, but he lifted himself up slightly, turned to his side and reached over to peck his wife on the cheek, not quite dead centre.

"What was that?" Hermione demanded, her outrage clear in her voice and in the way she'd jumped away from him.

Feeling about sixteen and clueless again, Ron had mumbled, "A goodnight kiss."

"A goodnight kiss?"

"For the last month, you haven't found me kissing you goodnight revolting," Ron said, his anger re-igniting. But suddenly, he winced at the thought that they'd only just celebrated their one-month anniversary as a married couple. Two nights ago, in fact. He'd been tangled up in Hermione, thinking there was nowhere else he'd rather be, and now here they were.

" _Lumos_ ," Hermione said. She stared at her husband in the soft light emanating from her wand. She was irritated that he was wearing a t-shirt when he hadn't bothered of late, all the better for her to trail kisses down from collarbone to navel. Ron looked stricken, not the furious man of the past few hours. Her irritation dissipated to be replaced by something more tender, something that had taken root a long time ago, but had been flourishing lately.

"I wasn't revolted," she said. "Just startled."

Ron stopped staring at the bedcover, a gift from the list her mother had forced them to get at a Muggle shop.

"We're not on snogging terms," Hermione said, ignoring the part of her that wanted to say 'more's the pity' and ignoring the fact that Ron's kiss had been a chaste peck. You could describe it as a perfectly respectable goodnight kiss. But Hermione and Ron were at loggerheads. It was no time for kissing.

"That shouldn't matter," Ron argued. She watched him take a breath. "I was given a piece of advice by—well, by a decent bloke with a solid marriage."

Bet Mr and Mrs Perfect never argue, Hermione thought. I bet they're both placid little Hufflepuffs.

"And he said, whatever's happened during the day, always kiss your wife goodnight."

Hermione stopped being mean, responding to the earnest way Ron was talking. Like this, he reminded her of the best of him, this man who she'd married. He deserved for her to listen to his explanation properly.

"So that she goes to sleep every night knowing," Ron swallowed, "that you love her."

"Ronald Weasley," she said in a softer tone that she'd used for hours.

They would continue with their argument the next day, and his t-shirt stayed on that night, but she leaned towards him and kissed him softly on the lips. It was one of the many kisses that Ron carried around with him in his memories.

There were other kisses. There were other fights. One night, he kissed Hermione, even though she was being pig-headed and self-righteous, for the battle light in her eyes. It was a kiss charged with the passions they'd been letting rip for most of the day. When he pulled away, he tried to ignore the way her mouth was parted, the fuller, redder state of her lips or that she was kneeling on their bed.

He said, "Goodnight, Hermione," and his voice was husky and gruff. She attacked him in response, leaping towards him, her lips demanding in a way that he was helpless to deny. She rode him on their bed. Only when both of them were spent and sated did she come to lie at his side, her left hand with his ring on it resting on his chest.

When Ron's breathing was somewhere close to normal, he kissed her on the head, inhaling the herbal scent of her shampoo and covering them up best he could with the bedclothes.

There was the night at the Burrow when the silencing charm they'd used for earlier activities meant that his words were inaudible. This set her off giggling, which was also inaudible, but turned him on again. The next night of their stay, Ron just kissed Hermione's jaw, which was the nearest part of her face to his lips because he was too exhausted for more.

There was the night after Hermione had said she might be pregnant. The axis of their world had shifted and he was seeing her in a new light. It felt right for the last kiss of the night to fall like a promise on her lips.

Sometimes her husband's lips would still taste like her. And then there was the time Ron had the flu and she'd ordered him to blow her a kiss and make up for it later. Ron grumbled about his maybe not seeing the morning. She'd rolled her eyes, but blew her own kiss at him.

The kisses still came, after Rose, after Hugo, after her first grey hairs. There was a little less snogging, although when it happened, it usually led to a shag, for which Hermione mostly awarded them an Outstanding, thank you very much. But there was a goodnight kiss every night they shared a bed, whether they were on holiday or at home, after they had been talking over worries or she'd been listing all the things she had to do the next day.

When she didn't hear his 'G'night 'Mione' or get to answer it with 'Night, love', she didn't sleep as well. Sometimes, not at all, because Ron was an Auror and Hermione knew what that meant. Harry had promised to keep Ron safe, just as Ron had promised her the same about Harry. But Hermione felt better when Ron was safe in their bed, even when he was snoring.

Some nights when she was alone in their bed, her mind would return to Mr and Mrs Perfect, the Hufflepuff types she'd made up long ago, and their boring marriage. Hermione wouldn't exchange what she had with Ron for that. But she didn't want to lose what she did have yet. On some of those nights, she'd give up on trying to sleep, make herself some tea and go over the parchments she'd brought home from work.

As for the mystery good bloke who had given Ron that piece of advice, and probably others, Hermione had her guesses about who he was. They were confirmed one afternoon over tea at Shell Cottage.

"Bill always gives me ze kiss goodnight." Fleur said. She had just come back from a visit to France and looked rested and resplendent. Hermione had stopped holding that kind of thing against her sister-in-law years ago. This wasn't the first time she'd Apparated to Shell Cottage for tea. Memories of her first stay there were now mixed with others, far less bleak, some involving the children, some involving most of the Weasley clan. "Nevaire mind what has happened zat day—good, bad or in ze middle. Always."

"Yes," Hermione responded. "Ron does that too. He always kisses me goodnight"

Oddly enough, she'd never told Ginny this. She had apparently scarred Ginny for life with other details about married life with Ron, but not this tradition that meant so much.

At the same time, that part of Hermione that loved to be right was whirling around going 'Whee!' Bill had been one of her top three 'Good blokes who's most likely to tell Ron to kiss me goodnight.'

"It is Arthur who told Bill to do it," Fleur said with a fond smile for both her husband and his father. "And I sink Arthur's father gave him the same piece of advice, and back it goes."

"It's not a bad piece of advice," Hermione commented. She didn't want to imagine her marriage without these kisses. She thought it would have worked, regardless, but not as well. Hermione made a mental note to tell Ron to pass the advice on to Hugo, when the time came. For that matter, she should tell Rose.

"Agree. And for me, here in England, where you do not kiss ze cheek in greeting, it would be like a famine wizzout Bill's kisses," Fleur said.

Hermione blinked, having never thought of it like that.

"Not zat Bill only kisses me on ze cheek," Fleur added, and now her smile was pure Veela, Hermione thought.

Fleur was, in fact, remembering Bill's welcome home after her recent trip. He hadn't been able to get as much time off as her, and so she had stayed longer in France, helping her parents, enjoying speaking her mother tongue and savouring the tastes and smells of her childhood. It had been a good holiday, but without Bill, she'd felt a sort of ache that had only subsided when they were together again. For the past few nights, Bill had made it clear he had felt the same way.

So, he would kiss her 'bonne nuit' last thing, but certainly not just on the cheek.

Hermione decided to be tactful and poured out some more tea and made further inroads into the crepes.

Perhaps it was the thought of that conversation earlier in the day that had Hermione unbutton her husband's pyjama jacket and ply him with kisses from collarbone to navel and back up again. It was then very easy to push him down on to the bed and have her way with him.

She rolled off Ron to come and lie by his side as his arm wrapped around her. The gesture was automatic, but he held her tight. Their breathing gradually returned to normal.

Eventually he chuckled, "Was it something about the sea air? Because if it is, we could go down to the coast for a few days."

"Actually, we could take a few days off and—" Hermione yawned.

"Enjoy ourselves," he finished for her. She hummed in agreement and closed her eyes. She felt the familiar caress of his lips on her temple, and heard 'G'night, Mione' as she drifted off to a sound, restful sleep.

Fin


End file.
